Well, the Puppet Up! website's bio for Leslie Carrera-Rudolph says "Carrara-Rudolph was also a member of the PBS puppet tour that visited shelters in Louisiana and Mississippi after Hurricane Katrina." -- Brad D. (talk) 19:29, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

"Appearances"

I've been meaning to bring this up. Since Brad cleaned up Category:Attractions, a lot of items were dumped in here which, to my mind, don't quite fit, and contradict the stated definition of the category: "This category is for articles about the Muppets appearing live at events or locations, when the event is not expected to be televised." Several of the recent additions are panels, screenings, seminars, and other events which may involve Muppet performers or other people *talking* about the Muppets, but no Muppets themselves (or Beaches Family Resorts, where it's just walk-around costumes; I went ahead and took that out for now). Some of the smaller categories, like Category:Book Appearances, there's little use in that kind of distinction (and it's a different medium anyway), but here, I think seperation is useful. Elmo appearing before the House of Representatives Appropriations Committee Hearing is not the same as the University of Maryland, with Jane Henson and Willard Scott talking about Henson and the Muppets. The same would go for American Film Institute and the Museum of Television and Radio, and there's plenty more of that kind which could be added. I think, if it's strictly lectures, panel discussions, or whatever *about* the Muppets, even if puppeteers, crew members, or guest stars are involved, they should be called something else, whether "Events" or something more specific ("Screenings," for example, but that doesn't really apply to the University of Maryland). A few items, like Brooklyn Academy of Music or MuppetFest which involved both appearances by actual Muppets and panel discussions or lectures just by Henson people, could be double counted. Thoughts? -- Andrew Leal (talk) 22:49, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

When I first sorted out the Attractions category out I did create an "Events" category but after a little discussion and thought, merged the stuff into here. It was easy to draw a line between Kermit appearing somewhere and Jim Henson appearing somewhere – but what about things like Kermit and Steve Whitmire, side-by-side, appearing at Barnes and Noble? Or MuppetFest? However thinking about it even more, and with the desire to separate behind-the-scenes oriented live appearances and in-character live appearances here's what I think...

That makes sense to me. Live Appearances' definition can stay as it is, I think. "Event" would be just what you said, any in-person appearances of Muppet personnel or notable screenings of Muppet work. Exhibits are any static displays, interactive exhibits, galleries, and so on (Museum of Television and Radio blurs the lines a bit there, but places with substantial on-site viewable Muppet archives are "exhibits" of a sort, and I don't know if it's worth our while to try to seperate those). I keep finding more and more odd Muppet appearances, especially international ones, which is why I feel they deserve a space seperate from AFI, where at least according to the article as is, the only "live appearance" was former guest star Harry Belafonte, which is nice and all, but not exactly the same thing as Grover speaking at Harvard or Elmo putting on Muslim headgear in Malaysia before crowds of children, and so on. -- Andrew Leal (talk) 19:10, 10 November 2006 (UTC)